I’m putting the finishing touches on Christmas Cookie Caper, a stand-alone, Bridal Shop Mystery novella with recipes. I started it long ago (perhaps last year or maybe even the year before), and rediscovered it the other day. What perfect timing!

This Labor Day weekend will be over a hundred degrees in southern California, where I live. So, what better time to write about a chilly December day when Max, Keiko, Fiona, Teresa, Eric, and Richard get together to bake and decorate cookies? There is a mystery, but no one dies for a change!

Recipes will be included, but I think I will wait a week or two before testing any new ones. I’m not about to turn on my oven today. It’s 105 degrees outside!

Thank goodness for my amazing George Foreman Grill (available on Amazon – here’s my affiliate link) and my rice cooker, not to mention the microwave. (The microwave had been relegated to the closet to free up counter space, but it’s back in my kitchen, at least until late fall). By the way, a microwave cookie recipe, Max’s specialty, will be included in Christmas Cookie Caper!

In my warm office, I close my eyes and think about bundling up with coat, scarf, and gloves, and stepping out into a chilly evening. Of course, Fiona, who is from Canada, will tease Max who thinks fifty degree weather is “freezing.” So many of us fell in love with reading because it transported us to another time and place, and it turns out that writing is much the same. Just like readers, we go visit our friends in the charming, little towns we love. The difference, of course, is that we created these people and this town ourselves! And yet, they seem so real.